


A Ragged Heart But It Still Beats

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Arguing, M/M, Mild Cruelty, Mild descriptions of violence, sexual favors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 08:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20617847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Supreme Leader Ren and General Hux come to an agreement in the wake of the events of The Last Jedi. The last thing Ren expects is to develop feelings for anyone so callous and cruel -- but luckily, Hux may feel just the same.





	A Ragged Heart But It Still Beats

It was very rare for Hux to want to speak in private. He was a man who preferred an audience as often as possible -- his mental wording was meant for speeches, commands, grand monologues that were heard by all. It was hard to imagine having a conversation with Hux, a normal conversation that didn't follow some kind of grandstanding script.

But here he was, wanting to speak to Ren. Or, in Hux's words, a private audience with the Supreme Leader.

The throne room that had formerly belonged to Snoke had been cleaned, but that was really all. It didn't have any kind of personal touch that marked it as Ren's, now that he had claimed power, not even any new set of guards. Privately, Ren knew he had no use for any set of guards that could be taken down by just two people, even if they were extraordinary people. Publicly, he had shoved off the job of finding new ones onto Hux, along with everything else he didn't really care to do. If Hux resented him for it, he hid it well. Hux was a master of spinning such chores into responsibilities only he could manage, something no one else could be trusted to do.

Hux moved into the ridiculously large, empty space at his normal ferocious, clipped pace.

"I thought now was a good time for negotiations," he said.

"Negotiations with whom?" The Rebellion had gone into hiding, and right now, finding them was the prime objective. It was also proving less successful than either Hux or Ren had expected. Had Hux found a runaway member willing to negotiate? The thought of the former trooper, or even better, the hard-headed girl, crawling back to make an attempt at setting terms amused Ren.

"With me. You and I."

Ren frowned. "What could we possibly have to negotiate?"

"The running of the Order, Ren."

He'd grown bold, hadn't he? At first, Hux had seemed properly chastened, addressing Ren as Supreme Leader, even. But Ren had gotten lazy about showing off his power, and for some reason, after the first time he'd really scared Hux with a show of power, he hadn't really wanted to do it again. He'd gotten the point across. But maybe now Hux needed a reminder.

"Why do you think you need to negotiate with me? Negotiation implies having something to offer."

"You're a fool if you think I don't."

"You're not the only person who knows how to shout orders, General. Do you think that makes you irreplaceable?"

Why are you working so hard to rile him up, a voice in the back of Ren's head asked. Truly, Ren did know that Hux probably was irreplaceable. He had an impressive knowledge of engineering, he could strategize like no one else Ren knew, and -- contrary to appearances -- he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty when he had to. Even more importantly, anyone loyal to the Order was loyal to Hux. Ren had spent too much time in the shadows with Snoke to build up the kind of reputation that Hux had, and if Hux was disposed of, those troops might be unhappy, unhappy enough to be swayed to revolt or switch sides.

And even more importantly, Ren sort of liked having Hux around.

Still, now was the perfect time to force Hux to make his case.

"You will not be able to replace me, even if you try," Hux answered, falling perfectly for the bait.

“You don’t understand what lengths I would go to, in order to succeed.”

Hux, forever unchanging. Forever the same.

“All right. I’m listening.” Ren couldn’t help but smile, which only seemed to deepen Hux’s resolve. Surely getting indulged like a little child playing with a toy blaster was the fastest way to irritate him. “What negotiations do you have for me?”

Hux took a deep breath.

“I want you to put me in charge of tracking down the Rebellion.”

Ren had been expecting that.

“Of course you do.”

“You haven’t made the headway, Ren. You haven’t gotten close to finding them.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If you did, wouldn’t you have struck by now? The more time they have, the more they can incite their ideals, spreading them from planet to planet like a torch that burns everything to the ground.”

An apt metaphor, Ren thought. He of all people knew exactly what it was like to burn everything to the ground.

“I’m aware. I’m searching in ways that no one else can.” This wasn’t quite a lie. He had been hoping to tap Rey’s connection to the force, do whatever spying he could, but either she had learned to shut him out completely or Snoke had been telling the truth when he had boasted he had been the one to create it in the first place. All his seeking in the darkness had been for nothing, and Hux could probably tell just by looking at his face.

“Well, I don’t intend to stop you from doing that,” he answered. “But while you meditate--” This word was served with a sneer. “I intend to act.”

“And what will I get from handing you the reins?”

For the first time, Hux’s expression was genuinely puzzled.

“Other than victory?”

This was Hux at his most distilled, his most Hux. There was nothing more important than victory -- nothing else existed, and nothing was a more thrilling reward. Why would Ren ask for more.

“You yourself you’d go to any length for the Order.”

“I would. But--”

“But?”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”

“Suppose I give you total command of the search. Everything would be your decision, your idea. No one stops or starts anything without your explicit go-ahead. You choose whether we take prisoners or obliterate everyone.”

Hux waited. His face was pale and still and unusually expressionless, prepare for whatever Ren was about to volley back.

“Suppose I did that,” Ren went on. “What would everyone think of their Supreme Leader?”

“Why should it matter? They wouldn’t question it.”

“It matters to me. You know as well as I do that the appearance of power is as important as power itself.”

“I’d tell everyone these were your ideas, if that would make you happy.”

“Would you? I think that would make you furious to have to do.”

“The road towards extinguishing those rebels isn’t going to be smooth, Ren. I’d rather accomplish the objective with my pride damaged than fail entirely. If you want credit for my ideas, you can have them. If you want my ideas for anything else, you can have them. If you want my body, well.”

Something unlocked in Ren’s head when he heard Hux say that.

“You really would?” he asked, and his voice was strangely soft when he said it, so Hux had to take a beat to make sure he had heard correctly. Hux had made his offer so matter-of-factly that Ren wasn’t sure if it was a joke.

“Yes.”

No hesitation.

“I’ll give you your command,” Ren said, louder, surer now. “You won’t even have to credit me with your brilliant ideas unless you really want to, it doesn’t matter. And since you’ve offered your body, I’ll take that.”

He hoped he sounded fierce, demanding, like a force to be reckoned with, maybe he could even cow Hux a bit -- but Hux’s expression hardly flickered. If Ren had to guess what was going on in Hux’s head at that moment, it was something like the way he’d seen people look when they try to stifle their pleasure after watching an opponent make the wrong move in a game.

He didn’t have to guess, of course. He could just look.

But he didn’t.

And Ren didn’t realize he was expecting an argument, some kind of further dickering-down, until it didn’t come.

“Very well,” Hux said crisply. Negotiations complete. “You’ll program your entryway so it’ll permit me entry on my own time.”

It hadn’t been since Rey of Jakku had left him lying on this exact floor that Ren had felt so thoroughly knocked off balance.

“When?” he asked, knowing his voice was hoarse and hating it but not able to do anything about it now.

_You could erase his fucking memory. You could bend this simpering creature like metal held to heat, finally have him out of your hair forever. Turn him into anything you wanted. You could just end it._

But he didn’t do that either.

Hux strode a few paces towards the exit, then turned to make his reply.

“When I decide it’s time.”

* * *

Of course, Hux wasn’t going to make Ren wait for very long. He’d offered his body for a reason, hadn’t he? Maybe he’d gotten the better of Ren during their ‘negotiations’, but it didn’t change the fact that he had been hungry for Ren to use him, and had found a convenient way to both get the project he was born to command and have his thirst for Ren’s body quenched.

Every time Hux visited, he moved differently. He did not stride, the way he always did, with his body puffed up like an animal trying to intimidate another creature that wanted to eat it. He did not quite sneak either, because Hux refused to be ashamed of anything he did in order to chase power. But he moved quietly, gracefully, with a different kind of purpose. Like he was stalking his prey.

It was a fancy of Ren’s, nothing more, to imagine that Hux would stay for a moment longer than he needed to. In Ren’s imagination, one night, Hux would fall asleep without meaning to, and Ren wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t move him. He’d just lay there beside him, on his elbow, watching Hux finally sleep. He’d never seen Hux sleep before and he knew the rumor went around the ship that Hux didn’t actually have to. They said Hux was a machine disguised as a man and never ate and never drank and never rested. But that wasn’t true at all, was it? Ren knew that he was a man, that he sipped water and smoked, that he yawned and sweated and bit his lip when he came.

Ren could not help but be flattered at how much Hux wanted him, at how much Hux had schemed just to end up in his bed. It was beginning to matter less and less who had the upper hand in this deal – why should it matter if they both got what they want? Hux could do things that Ren had never imagined with his mouth, and he was the first man Ren had ever met that could go to his knees in a way that made him look regal instead of submissive. Because Hux never truly, really submitted. He did not know how. He was an animal that could be subdued but never tamed, and that only made Ren harder for him.

Hux would sometimes stay the whole night, if he was really exhausted, but he would usually leave as soon as Ren had been wrung out like an old mop. If he said anything at all, it was some sort of allusion to the following day’s plans, and sometimes, in a voice that did not waver – “Thank you.”

* * *

The intel had indicated that there was a rare abundance of something very similar to kyber on a planet so small that it did not even have a name. In the records of the Empire of old, it was simply called “29”, and the material -- which had been nicknamed kyberish, a stupid joke that had stuck -- had been buried under a layer of other metals that had prevented the outdated technology from detecting its existence. But as the single thin continent of the planet had shifted and cracked, the kyberish had been driven to the surface. Kyberish was not of much use to anyone who used a lightsaber; it didn’t intensify the Force the way that real kyber did. Instead, it dulled perception to it. Nothing as dramatic as cutting a Force user off, but Ren had read that it would make it fuzzy, harder to detect changes. However, its stamina as a superweapon core made it useful for someone like Hux, and for that reason, going out and extracting as much of it as possible became a priority.

This was what Hux said, and it was also true to an extent. What was even more true was that Hux hadn’t managed to track down the straggling group of rebels any better than Ren had. The fact that there were so few of them meant they were able to slip through cracks and hide, and finding them out in the wide universe seemed, for the first time, a truly hopeless task.

So Hux had decided to pour his energy into other tasks, tasks that would help them take out their enemies for good, once those enemies were eventually found. He spoke of it often, when they were alone together. “They will not take us by surprise,” he’d say, between ferocious kisses. “We’ll be waiting, no matter when they choose to strike. We’ll be waiting, Ren.”

Sometimes Ren imagined himself as one of the weapons that Hux was building, something powerful as it was purposeful. This is what Luke had wanted of him, all those years ago, and this is what Snoke had wanted too, but now was the first time he had ever felt happy about being used this way. Hux was – smarter. No, it wasn’t that. His goals were the same as Ren’s. He could get them what they both wanted.

It was becoming harder to deny that he liked this arrangement, every angle of it. Playing at figurehead without having to do the work. Let Hux have it, if he wanted it. Let Hux borrow his body and take out his frustration on it. Ren’s body had taken more. Ren would sometimes count the marks Hux had left on his body, from his teeth and thumbs, marks that were far less obvious than the ones he’d left on Hux all that time ago. Throwing him like a toy. That time seemed like lifetimes ago. Ren had shed his skin and become someone completely new so many times that the shedding didn’t even hurt anymore.

“Will you be on the mission to 29 tomorrow?” Hux asked curtly.

Only minutes before, he had been on his knees in front of Ren, looking up right at him, _seeing_, and his eyes had looked almost loving, and Ren had nearly fainted.

_I do not _love_ him. I cannot._

But it was getting harder to deny the possibility that he really had fallen in love with the only person on this ship as horrible as he was.

“Yes,” Ren answered. “I want to see it for myself, and frankly, I don’t expect the expedition to do as well on their own as they could do with me at the helm.”

“That’s what I said as well. I’ll be there, too.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea for us to both go? Shouldn’t one of us stay on the ship?”

Hux gave the faintest little smile at that.

“And which of us do you think that should be? Not the one who will be less than stellar around these stones that wreak havoc on the Force?”

“I suspect you’re more useful here than on the ground.” Ren hadn’t even ever _seen_ Hux on the ground, come to think of it. But he did not like the idea of Hux vulnerable. Anything could happen.

“I spent some time training out in the wild when I was at the Academy. And after.”

“Years ago.”

Hux bristled. “Not that many.” If he had an opportunity to remind anyone within earshot that he was one of the youngest generals the First Order had, he’d take it. Ren suspected he’d try to pass himself off as being in his early twenties if he thought he could get away with it.

“Do you think you’d be more useful than me?”

“I never said that. But if we combine our commands on this mission, we can presumably find what we’re looking for faster and get us both back in better time.”

Ren laughed. “Do you plan to mine for it yourself?” The image of Hux with a shovel was too funny to resist. Hux didn’t miss a beat in responding.

“Of course not. But you and I can command some troops to properly do a survey, and then we’ll be able to send an actual mining team back immediately. It should barely take a day cycle to find out just what scale we’re working with if we do it right. If we do it together.”

Another pang struck Ren’s heart; there was some dark and strange romance to the words ‘if we do it together’. He shook the feeling off fast and hard, like it was a roach that had crawled onto his hand.

“Yes. You’re right.”

* * *

29 was scorching hot. The planet was placed just far enough from its suns – three, a new record, at least as far as Ren knew of – to sustain life, though that life didn’t look like much. Enormous, scraggly plants, more trunk than leaf. Strange six-legged lizards that could fit in the palm of the hand, ones that showed no fear of intruders. They weren’t vicious, just annoying, and they were harder to get wave off than flies. Without a helmet, it was easier to bear the heat, but there was a trade-off – when the dry, warm winds picked up, particles of dust flew into Ren’s eyes.

Still, it wasn’t too hard to find the kyberish, once they got moving. They’d had to land some ways from the big vein of it since they’d needed a clear landing space, but it wasn’t more than a few minute’s walk. The land they were approaching was cracked and split like a lip struck by the back of a hand, the gleaming blood-red of the material shimmering among the rocky teeth of the landscape. Ren began to feel a glimmer of hope that this task would be as simple as Hux had promised.

“General,” one of the troopers said, making his approach, and Hux nodded to indicate he’d heard. “We’re seeing evidence of intelligence.”

“Inhabitants?” The planet was, officially, uninhabited. Who’d want to live here? Then again, Ren thought, awful places like Jakku could sustain life, so perhaps it wasn’t so far-fetched.

“No, sir. Scouts for the Rebellion, more likely.”

Ren gritted his teeth. The desert girl would have a far easier time exploring this place than any of this group would, even if her ability to tap into the Force felt as dulled down and sapped as his own did now, and she could lead a few of her fellow creatures without much trouble.

“We have no indication they’re building a weapon of their own,” Hux snapped, his voice already becoming strident.

“Weapons have nothing to do with it,” Ren cut in. “If they’re here, they’re laying the groundwork for an ambush.”

“Then we’ll have to be extra vigilant. You are not to take any prisoners. Shoot on sight.”

“Yes, sir,” the trooper answered dutifully.

Ren reached out with all of the strength he could muster, feeling for the bright pillar of Force that was the girl, with enough effort to call forth a headache. If she had come, he would kill her. But wherever she was, out in the vast galaxy, she didn’t seem to be close. Not here. Not this planet. He felt himself relax. As long as it wasn’t her, he could handle whatever had come.

Maybe they were overreacting. Maybe it wasn’t rebels at all, but just scavengers making their way from planet to planet, hoping to gather easy pickings. Kyberish on the scale that the First Order planned to use it was going to be a project to gather, one requiring drills and manpower and transport ships, but there were little shards of it everywhere, easy to grab by the handful and fill a bag with. Ren picked up a piece nearby the size of his fist, examined the way it threw off the relentless light of the triple suns.

It didn’t send a thrill through his heart the way it had felt when he’d used real kyber to build his first lightsaber. But it was beautiful. He hadn’t realized it would be so red – it looked like the core of real, corrupted kyber at the heart of his own lightsaber. It looked like his own heart in his hand, fuel for a weapon.

And it would please Hux, and that sent an entirely different kind of thrill through Ren.

Perhaps he’d fashion some kind of weapon for Hux from this, a small one. If he put his mind to it, Ren could probably rig up some powerful little blaster with this.

“Ren. Come along.”

The rest of the troopers had already moved on, but Hux had stayed, watching him watch the light pour off the stone, almost dazed with distraction. He could tell something was off, that Ren had grown fuzzy and strange. But Ren caught up in a few long strides, and quickly pulled ahead so he could get a better view of the stones laying out before them. 29 was so small that its planetary curvature could be seen, just a few miles off. This project could be wrapped up soon and he could get the hell out, yes. “How much do you think there is, General?” he called back.

“Tons. We may have to tear the planet apart.” Hux made a motion like he was peeling a piece of fruit.

“Quite a sight.”

“I’ll be sure to invite you to watch.”

Nearly pleasant, this conversation. Hux’s prickliness was part of his personality; it would never truly go away. But these few brief moments allowed Ren to imagine them co-ruling for real, really working together…

Distracted again. If they were really going to make a weapon out of this stuff, Ren planned to be as far away as he could.

The survey went on, bit by bit, the chosen troopers carefully measuring, photographing, gauging. A few were assigned to specifically keep an eye out for traps, any sign of the possible ambush. The day cycle wore on and the suns began to set, turning the sky a deep, unsettling crimson that made the kyberish around them seem to almost disappear.

Things were just beginning to wrap up when the assault began. There was barely time for the troopers who were keeping watching to call out a warning, begin returning fire, before the blaster shots began pouring out from the clump of ugly plants that were dense enough to hide attackers. If Ren had had his full faculties, he would have stopped them all easily. As it was, mildly woozy, his mind struggled to catch up, and all he could think was—

“Hux! Get _out_\--”

He was hoping Hux would turn tail and run, the way people sometimes joked the slim, fastidious, sneering general surely would, if he were met with real danger. Let him be a coward, Ren could love a coward. He would rather kiss the skin that Hux had saved than lose it forever. But instead, Hux drew his own blaster faster than anything Ren had ever seen.

Another shot blazed past, so close that Ren could feel the heat of it just above his shoulder, the same shoulder the scavenger girl had scarred up and for a second he could have sworn it was her, coming back to finish the job – but no. Then a responding blast from behind him, Hux, charging forward, his stance like an angry animal, every hair on end. The thought thickly bubbled to the top of Ren’s head: _so this is what they taught him at the Academy, stars fuckin’ above._

_ _

Hux’s shot had struck home, and he shouted something to his troops that it took Ren a minute to comprehend. “Spread out! Root every single one of them out!”

It was only now that Ren thought to light his own saber, and it felt like another hand was holding it, not his.

He didn’t even end up using it.

“Keep moving,” Hux called, once the volley of shots had stopped. “They’re either retreating or they’re pulling a ploy. Find them all.”

But there weren’t any more, none left hiding in the trees or under the exposed chunks of kyberish, and as the troopers swarmed, abandoning the survey to ensure all of the attackers had been dispatched, searching through the rapidly falling dark, Hux turned to Ren, who had just deactivated his saber.

“Come. Come with me.”

* * *

The shuttle they had taken was not particularly spacious – it was small, dimly lit, barely better than the prison cells they kept captive in back on the main warships -- but the troopers had set it up so they could take respite – a spot to drink water, eat ration bars, escape the powerful heat of 29, catch a breath without the fury of the Supreme Leader or General Hux coming down upon them. Except, of course, if they were using it to tend to their own wounds.

These wounds were really not that bad, all things considered. The heat from the blast that had just missed Ren had left a mild burn on his lower neck, just above his collarbone, and they were both cut and bruised from Hux knocking him down so quickly.

There was something in Hux’s face that Ren had never seen before.

“Stars above,” he told Ren, his voice a growl. “You’re still standing and walking, which is more than I could have hoped for a few minutes ago. Are you going to thank me, then?”

It only just occurred to Ren he hadn’t.

“Thank you, General.”

He was not quite gentle about it, but not sarcastic either.

Hux made a harrumphing kind of sound in response, opening a panel in the little shuttle to find a pen flashlight. “Why aren’t there better lights in here? A poor use of First Order resources – we should be able to _see_ our own damned interiors—”

“Why didn’t you leave?” Ren interrupted.

Hux did not answer. He just pointed the flashlight at Ren’s face, making Ren wince at the sudden light. This was not meant to be a cock move, though it being Hux, it just sort of happened that way regardless. He was trying to see how badly Ren had been burned.

“I told you to leave,” Ren went on.

“I thought you handed the running of the Order over to me.”

“I’m not the Order, and I have no interest in being commanded like one of your foot soldiers. I’m beyond that.”

Hux snorted.

“Commanded like a foot soldier? You don’t seem to mind in private.”

“Not when lives are on the line, Armitage!”

Hux’s jaw tightened at the sound of Ren shouting. He did not move, but he didn’t seem so flippant now, either.

“Your life was on the line. Not mine.”

“We could have both died.”

“And I made sure we both lived.”

The words that Ren truly wanted to say finally came out, scalding and sudden as a geyser’s stream.

“Hux, I was _terrified_. That you would – that you would be so stupid and so stubborn, stars, you can’t defend yourself like I can…”

Hux looked wholly unimpressed. It seemed that he didn’t believe a word of this, or that he had already decided he would not believe any of this. It would be easier to dismiss it like a bad dream than to accept that anyone might be afraid for his life or safety.

“You still think that?” he asked. “You still think I’m _defenseless_? I don’t pretend to be a modest man, Supreme Leader—” This title was delivered with a sneer powerful enough to break glass. “But I think your ego really might exceed mine, now. If you think of me as some useless child that can’t even—”

“That isn’t what I said,” Ren snarled. His head was pounding now, aching like it never had before. He took a deep breath, trying to force his words out in the right order, the right words, he had to fix this.“Of course you’re not defenseless.”

“Then perhaps leave the defending to me, especially when you are incapacitated in such a specific way. Unless you’re so afraid for me that you’d rather lock me away in some vault—”

“Is it really that bizarre to you that I would be afraid for your safety?”

Hux’s face twitched, as if a hundred different answers were crowding at his lips and none of them could quite escape.

“The running of the Order,” he began. “You couldn’t risk—”

“_Fuck the Order_.”

That shut Hux up nice and quick.

“You are to understand,” Ren said, slowly, deliberately, understanding that this was far more intimidating than any outburst of noise. “That I do not wish for you to come to harm. You. The First Order, I don’t care one way or the other. It’s only a means to an end.”

This was not a Force command. It was a plea, in its own way.

Hux still said nothing.

“It’s important because it matters to you. Because it’ll get us both what we need. That’s all.”

The quiet that followed was as intense as the heat that had followed them into the shuttle.

“Then why…?” Hux finally said.

“I wanted to keep you safe,” Ren answered, helpless and ragged. “That’s why I wouldn’t let you come alone.”

“When you were the one useless here instead.”

Ren closed his eyes, feeling the endless pounding of his head move across his skull.

“I know you feel the same about me that I feel about you.”

“That depends entirely on how you feel about me, Ren.”

“You found a way to access me. You wanted me.”

“I wanted power.”

“Are you going to deny that I could give you power and love at the same time?”

“You never said you loved me.”

“I’m saying it now.”

He could always erase Hux’s memory if he had to, he told himself, but he also knew he wouldn’t have to.

Hux’s clenched his jaw.

“You feel the same.”

“Is that a question or a command?”

“I’m not commanding you. I know.”

“But you want to hear me say it.” Hux gave a rough, rasping laugh. “Well, why don’t you just climb inside my head if you want to hear what I have to think so badly? Why don’t you force it out?”

Ren just looked at him, wordless.

“No,” he finally said.

Hux had been bracing for the exact opposite.

“Ren.”

“I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to force anything from you anymore.”

There were many ways to say that you loved someone, and some words struck harder than others. To a man like Hux, there was maybe nothing more romantic than that.

“Ren,” he said again, his voice softer. There was an awkward beat of silence, and then he added: “We are rather bad at this.”

“We’re trying, I guess.”

“Cruelty comes more naturally for me.”

“You still saved my life.”

“It was worth saving, and there are few people I can say that about.” The sound of the troopers returning emerged faint but persistent, out beyond the dimness of the shuttle, and Ren closed his eyes again at the sound. Once Hux wasn’t being looked at, perhaps felt braver. “There are few people worth loving, but you—”

He could not go on, so Ren simply answered, “I know.”

* * *

Later reports would confirm that their attackers had not been anyone directly affiliated with Rey of Jakku or her companions, but sympathizers ready to throw in with their lot. Apparently pledging allegiance to the girl that had found Luke Skywalker suited them more than digging around for pieces of rock, and they’d died for it. So be it. Their attempt had been as grand as it was poorly thought out.

But of course their martyrdom would not go unanswered.

Hux could tell something had happened just by one look at Ren’s face the next time they met for a private visit.

“What is it?” he asked.

He’d brought a bottle of wine. As if in celebration.

“The girl passed a message on to the First Order.”

“A message? Through a holo? I can have it dissected and find out the source so we can track them d—”

“That won’t be necessary, Armitage. She’s offered a direct challenge.”

A direct challenge against this wild animal of a girl had never gone well. They both knew that.

“To the death,” Hux said.

“It will be. Hers.”

But his eyes could not hide his fear.

Hux set down the bottle and took Ren’s hand.

“It will be,” he echoed, and the fervent fire that Ren had so often seen in his eyes when he was talking about weapons and military formations and all of the things that had mattered so little to Ren, it was there now, as Hux talked about him instead. “She and her like have been on the run, exhausted like hunted animals. Why would she suddenly offer up a challenge now? She’s desperate to keep the love of her people. She’s desperate to keep them from abandoning her cause. This time, you know the sort of tricks she plays. This time you’ll be ready.”

He said these things in a way that Ren could believe.

“You’re right,” Ren told him, and he squeezed Hux’s hand, hard. “Yes. You’re right.”

They drank to that that night, and did not speak of the girl again all evening, busying themselves instead with one another, every inch, every freckle, refusing to speak the words that would undo them both. This was better, and easier, and lovelier.

_This time, I’ll be ready._

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW this is some Classic Kylux! Canon, they argue, they fall in love, tale as old as time. It's been a lot of fun getting back to basics. 
> 
> Thanks to oxybatenatrium for creating some truly jaw-dropping art for this story! I am absolutely in love with it and I need everyone to look at it for hours on end. Click [here](https://oxybatenatrium.tumblr.com/post/189052660372/huxs-shot-had-struck-home-and-he-shouted) and [ here](https://oxybatenatrium.tumblr.com/post/189052650212/huxs-face-twitched-as-if-a-hundred-different) to see it on Tumblr!


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